


Afterthoughts

by UnicrownR



Category: Captain America (Comics), Iron Man (Comics), Marvel (Comics)
Genre: Afterthoughts, Domestic Avengers, F/M, Team as Family, Wedding, and Steve loves her so much, but we love her anyway, toni stark is an overthinker TM
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-10-04 16:55:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20474411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnicrownR/pseuds/UnicrownR
Summary: "She was an engineer, she liked to solve problems. And guess what? Not being completely happy about the wedding was a huge fucking problem, and the fact that she wasn’t able to solve it was driving her insane.She took a deep breath and closed her eyes.You are a genius, Stark. Think."my take on Toni and Steve's wedding and why they were wearing their suits (earth-3490)





	Afterthoughts

**Author's Note:**

> Hi there! Before you start reading, I just wanted to let you know that this fic has not been betaed and english is not my first language, so I'm sorry for any mistake you may find! (in case there are some big ones, feel free to let me know in the comments, so I can fix them!)  
That being said, I hope you enjoy the fic!

Natasha “Toni” Stark was a genius, an engineer, the owner of a company, a superhero and, soon enough, a married woman. 

Pepper and Jenna sat on the bed, behind her, and Toni could see the reflection of their bright smiles in the mirror in front of her. 

“I can’t believe you’re marrying him.” said Jenna playfully, shaking her head. 

“Neither can I.” answered Toni, in the exact moment Pepper punched Jenna on the shoulder.

“Shut up, J. I can’t deal with afterthoughts after everything we’ve done to organize this wedding.” Pepper reprimanded, but the smile didn’t disappear from her lips, and Jenna answered with a brief shake of her shoulders. 

“Ok, I will try not to induce any afterthoughts, but for the record I still don’t like him.”

“Too bad it’s not you who has to like him!” 

while the two women started bickering playfully, Toni gracefully sat on the comfortable chair where she had been for the most part of the morning, while preparing for what everyone kept referring to as ‘the biggest day of her life’. But was it?

Her eyes turned towards the huge window that filled the room with the pleasant light of the late morning, but she wasn’t actually looking at the breathtaking view of New York that the Avengers Tower granted her.

Was her wedding day the biggest day of her life? The best, perhaps - most definitely -. But the biggest? She could name a few days that had been ‘bigger’ than that. She took a deep breath. She was marrying the love of her life, right? It shouldn’t have been so hard. She should have been happy. And she was, God, she was. But she should have been happy and that’s it. Not happy and anxious, nauseous, stressed and insecure. And yet.

She had been less stressed the day she had taken over Stark Industries, in front of all the old fuckers who thought she was some kind of stupid doll who only cared about daddy’s money, despite her impressive IQ and academic achievements, such as finishing college at 16. That day, she had been cool, in control, ready to show everybody that she was ready to step out of Howard’s fucking shadow. 

_ And look how that turned out _ , she thought, with a self deprecating laugh that ringed in her brain. The constant comparison with her father only reminded her of why she had such a shitty childhood, of why she had been so eager to leave for college, of why she had always felt like a failure. She had turned back to alcohol after a month and a half of taking over SI. 

‘Stark’s daughter goes to rehab once again’ the papers had said. Not Natasha Stark goes to rehab, but Stark’s daughter, as if that was everything she would ever be.

“Ehi, Toni.” Jenna’s face was suddenly in her line of sight. Toni startled a little bit. Pepper’s hands came to rest on her shoulders.

“You okay down there?” the blonde woman asked, with a little bit of concern hidden under her playful tone. “I was kidding, you know? If you want to talk about any afterthought we are here, darling.” Jenna nodded along with Pepper’s words, concern clear in her eyes. 

Toni’s first instinct was to say that everything was fine. But she took a deep breath and thought about how far she’d come since the days where she bottled everything up. 

“I- don’t know, honestly. I don’t think I’m having afterthoughts, just… I don’t know how to talk about this. But don’t worry, I still really want to marry Steve.” or at least she thought so. 

She pushed all other thoughts aside and focused on her love for the man. Yeah, that was still there, burning as much as usual. She smiled, sincere and bright, and that seemed to calm her two best friends down.

In that moment, her two other bridesmaids bursted into the room, carrying her shoes and her veil. 

“Are you ready, bridezilla?” 

“That was one time!” Toni gasped “You are a terrible bridesmaid, Clint.”

“Please, I’m clearly the best, and if you had let me wear the peach colored dress like I suggested I would have been even better. Ah, I bet you said no because I would have looked better than you.” the archer laughed, setting her shoes down. 

“I said no because Bucky literally choked on the water he was drinking when you suggested it and I don’t want my future husband’s best man to die during the wedding thank you very much.”

“That would have been fun though” commented Jenna, relieving Natasha - Romanoff - of the duty of veil carrier. 

“Jenna, play nice.” Pepper said, smacking her shoulder lightly. Everybody started chatting about the last preparations before heading to the church, and the silent agreement appeared to be not to bother Toni with all that, because every time she tried to lend a hand for something, one of her bridesmaid pushed her back on her chair. With a sigh, she relented and went back at staring outside the window.

She was an engineer, she liked to solve problems. And guess what? Not being completely happy about the wedding was a huge fucking problem, and the fact that she wasn’t able to solve it was driving her insane. 

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

_ You are a genius, Stark. Think. _

It was safe to say that her relationship with Steve didn’t start in the best of ways. Actually, it started with a repulsor to the face and a shield to the throat.

In Steve’s defense, he had just been defrosted, and the last thing he remembered was downing a HYDRA plane in the arctic while fighting the Red Skull, in the middle of WWII. When he opened his eyes, after 70 years, the first thing he saw was the metal plate of the Iron Woman armor’s helmet, and the soft blue glow of the Arc Reactor, and of course he associated blue with HYDRA tech, and well- what seemed to him like a robot was looming over him. He reached for his shield and attacked. 

If Toni had been in a better moment of her life, she would have probably stepped down, tried to explain what was happening, that she wasn’t HYDRA, or any other enemy for what it mattered. Instead, Toni was in a pretty shitty moment of her life: Stane’s betrayal, Stark Industries’ weapons all over the world in the hands of who knows who, America’s reaction to her decision to stop the weapons production, and her busy, stressing second life as a superhero. When Captain America attacked her, well, she didn’t step down. She took it as a personal attack, as a test to her strength, as a mockery to the fact that she was a woman. She didn’t stop for a second to think that this man, who lived in the 40s, just saw a fucking robot. Instead, she blasted her repulsor and started fighting Captain America. It took Thor to physically come between them to break the fight, and then Fury, called by Natasha, to explain everything. 

After everything had been said, Steve looked really, really confused, and maybe Toni felt a pang of guilt at not considering his situation. Not that she said anything: she never said sorry. She would rather die than say sorry, so she tried to be right as much as she could. Not very healthy, according to her therapist. Also not very possible when her impressive intelligence was counterbalanced by her impulsiveness and recklessness.

“You’re…” Steve started.

“A woman, yes. Got a problem with that, soldier?” she snarked. 

“God, no. I meant- you are not a robot?”

and Toni suddenly felt very grateful to her helmet for covering the embarrassed flush that covered her cheeks. 

“Nope, I’m a person. With a very cool armor.” she muttered, leaning against the wall. Steve kept looking at her, dazzled, and Toni felt really uncomfortable. 

“Anybody hungry? ‘Cause I am. I’m gonna get cheeseburgers.” with those words - and a cheerful shout of “me too” on Clint’s part - she started for the door, leaving behind a very confused Captain America.

Their first meeting hadn’t been amazing, for sure, but it wasn’t what made Toni so uncertain and stressed. They didn’t get together right after that, sure, and the path to their friendship, let alone to their actual relationship, had been long - and if you listened to the rest of the team also draining because of the amount of sexual tension -, but they had gotten there, right? Despite all of Toni’s defenses, they had gotten there. Somehow.

So what was it? What made her so on edge?

_ Keep thinking, Stark. You’ve got to solve this. _

Toni made a point of never reading gossip magazines, for two official reasons and an unofficial one: first, they had nothing that could hold her interest (ten advices for the perfect beach body? No, thank you very much, she would rather spend her money on Popular Mechanics). Second, they were full of stereotypes that only helped her get even more mad at the situation of the world. There was no real information in there, and yet, they were so popular. And third - the unofficial reason - was that she knew what they said about her. Because back in the day when she gave a shit about what other people thought, she had read their articles about her.

It was always about the people she slept with, or the amount of times she had to go to rehab, or the parties she got drunk at.. never about her new inventions, or the developments she brought to Stark Industries, or the new tech she provided the Avengers with. 

So, no, she didn’t read gossip magazines. 

But she knew that some of the avengers liked to read them to laugh about the absurd articles about them (‘Top three dateable avengers’, for example. Or the evergreen ‘shirtless avengers!’ entirely composed of photos of them with their suits ripped during a battle and old topless pictures of Toni), so it wasn’t surprising that a copy of teen vogue found its way in the Avengers Tower. Usually Toni would have just ignored it, or made fun of it and whoever was reading it, but this time it had a picture of her and Steve on the cover.

_ I’m a masochist _ , she thought distractedly, while picking up the thing. And maybe she was. Or maybe she was just curious by nature. And what do they say about curiosity and the cat? Something. There was a saying somewhere about a curious cat. She couldn’t recall, but she was sure it applied to that situation. 

Steve found her on the Avenjet deck a few hours later.

“Are you okay?” he asked. They learned to work together, and they made quite the duo on the battlefield, but he was always kind of tiptoeing around her. And, given how many times she lashed out at him, he had a reason. 

“Just peachy, Cap. Why?” she asked, staring at New York’s skyline right in front of her, with a hard and cold expression. She felt Steve tense next to her, then take a deep breath. 

“‘Cause you don’t look… peachy, Toni. You look-” he stopped, probably to think about a good word. “Pissed.” he settled for, in the end.    
The other day he had said ‘nervous’ and she almost screamed at him. Because she was on her period and immediately assumed he knew and was referring to that. He was actually referring to the fact that she had drunk six cups of coffee in less than an hour and didn’t sleep for at least 48 hours. 

“Yeah, I’m pissed.”

“Can I ask why?”

She debated not telling him. Keeping him out just like everybody else. Because she was Natasha fucking Stark and, as Howard taught her, she didn’t need anybody.

Instead, she silently handed him the magazine.

“I didn’t think you read these things.” Cap said, sounding curious. Toni raised an eyebrow at him. He ran a hand through his hair.

“Sorry, it’s just- when the others are reading the gossip magazines you scoff and make a point of doing something else entirely.” he said, finally lowering his gaze to look at the cover.

“Oh. I didn’t think they took a picture of that moment.”

“Yeah, they have the habit of taking the worst pictures possible.” she answered, bitterly. Steve sat next to her, looking at the picture with a carefully blank expression. 

The picture in question was a shot of Captain America holding Iron Woman bridal style. Usually, as everybody with eyes knew, it was the other way around, because Iron Woman could fly and, well, Captain America couldn’t. But during that battle with AIM Modok had found a way to shut down her armor, and her repulsor had stopped working. She fell from the sky like a damn raindrop - heavy, metal and screaming in rage raindrop - and thankfully Thor, and then Captain America, when the God had been charged by an AIM agent, had been there to catch her. 

She noticed that the silence had stretched enough to be awkward.

“It’s not- I am a genius, Rogers. And even if I wasn’t, it wouldn’t take one to know that I would have died for that fall. I am grateful that you were there to catch me. I just wish- of all the times I carried YOU… of course this is the only picture they care about, you know? Whatever I do, as Toni Stark or Iron Woman, is not enough.”

Steve was about to interrupt and answer, but Toni shushed him with a gesture and opened the magazine for him. Steve read quickly through the article.

“This is bullshit.” he said, brows furrowed. 

“I am used to it, though. Ok, so maybe at the beginning I didn’t do a very good job as the Avengers’ leader, ‘cause I was reckless and all that, but I got better, right? Still, what they say about me is always shit like that.” her eyes fell on the smaller title of the article: ‘will Iron Woman finally get tamed?’ with more stolen shots of what the public dubbed IronShield. 

“I don’t understand how-” there was something in Steve’s eyes that looked like anger. “-how can they write these things about you. They have no idea who you are, what you do… how is this journalism?” 

Toni let out a loud laugh, tilting her head to the side. 

“They don’t care about real facts, Cap. They only care about scandals, and juicy gossip. Why do you think they make all that money?” There was a beat of silence, then Steve turned around.

“Toni… can I be serious for one second?” he asked.

“You were joking until now? Wow, you really had crappy sense of humour in the forties.” Steve ignored her comment.

“You are amazing. You are so talented. You built a whole new technology to keep yourself alive, and created a superhero suit from scraps while trapped in a cave in Afghanistan. You saw what your weapons were doing, and stopped producing them, you are currently fighting to make them disappear from the world. All of them. Of course, on the side you are also a badass superhero that keeps the city, and the world safe. And I haven’t even started talking about how you are a genius and you brought Stark Industries on the path of medical developments and reusable energies, and- maybe you are not perfect, but you are amazing, Toni.” 

Toni literally gaped at him. What was she supposed to do with that? How was she supposed to accept all those compliments? Her self deprecating response was already building up inside of her and damn, she was ready to retort to every single comment he made - because he surely had an ulterior motive, everyone had one, Captain America couldn’t think those things about Toni “merchant of death” Stark -, but in that moment, the tower’s danger signal started to ring, and just like that they were off to grab their suits and get into the battle.

Only after a few hours, when the AIM agents trying to steal Stark Industries’ tech were defeated and captured, Toni moved close to Steve once again and raised the face plate of the helmet. 

“I’m sorry.”

“About what? You couldn’t have deflected the bullet that hit me without letting one of them escape with the tech.” he said, confused.

“No- I meant about earlier. About every- ugh, about all the time I lash out at you. I swear it’s just- a defense mechanism, I guess.”

“Oh. No problem. I didn’t realize how much you are forced to go through because of the public eye. It’s not easy.” he said, while they boarded the Avenjet. Clint and Thor started fighting about… shotgun? While Natasha started piloting. 

“Ehi, you two, stop fighting. There are enough seats for everybody. Where even is shotgun in here?” Toni asked, eager to change topic and avoiding Steve’s eyes. The man, though, put a careful hand on her shoulder.

“Toni… I would never judge you for being a woman. I- sometimes I feel like you think that. That I could think less of you because you are a woman. Or more, for what it matters. I respect you deeply for who you are and what you do, not for your gender, and whatever I say to you I’m saying to Toni, my teammate and friend… I hope. What I say to you isn’t any different from what I say to Clint or Thor. Well, it is, but you know- I mean the intentions.”

It felt like a heavy weight being lifted from her chest. Because Toni had learned from a young age to tell when a person was lying and faking, and when she looked into Steve’s eyes, she saw only honesty. 

“We have an emergency.” Pepper said, in the background. Toni’s attention switched immediately from her thoughts to her friends, ready to get up and get the suit. Pepper shook her head quickly.

“Not that kind of emergency, Iron Woman. I’m talking about… mundane, wedding-related emergencies, so relax and don’t worry. We’ll fix it.”

and Pepper accompanied those words with her usual get-shit-done glare. God, that woman. She had been amazing at organizing the wedding, like she was amazing at everything. Even though Toni hadn’t wanted to bother her with that, she had done it without her asking, because she knew exactly what Toni liked or disliked, and she couldn’t, and wouldn’t, trust anyone else with her best friend’s wedding. And there she was, fixing all the last minutes problems with that glare in her eyes- and everything Toni could think of was that maybe, just maybe, she would have liked something to go wrong, so she could postpone the wedding.

That was bad. That was a huge problem. Was she really having second thoughts about marrying Steve when, just a few days before, she had been over the moon with happiness? After everything Pepper and the others had done? She was being so fucking selfish.

“I can-”

“No.” Pepper shot her down, glancing at Clint. The archer drew closer to Toni, and sat on top of the table in front of her chair.

“Ok, Bridezilla, I’m gonna check your makeup.”

“What- no, thank you.”

“Oh yes I am” Clint said, with a grin, swatting away the protective hands she raised to her face.

Pepper walked out of the room, striding. Jenna sighed and followed her.

“Ehi, Tones.” Clint said, while Natasha hopped on the table next to him. Her penetrating green eyes were fixed on her. 

“What’s wrong?” he asked, leaving her makeup alone. Toni smiled, noticing the tie he was wearing. It was purple with little arrows printed on it. It had been a gift from her. 

“I’m fine. I’m just a little-” she stopped, unsure.

“Stressed?” Natasha said, curiously.

“Yeah, I guess. I don’t know what I should be stressed about, though. Pepper is doing everything, y’know? Literally, she won’t let me raise a finger to help.”

Natasha and Clint snickered. 

“She can see that look you had on your face, you know?” Natasha murmured. Toni stared at her, surprised.

“Oh, c’mon, we’re super-spies, Tones” Clint interjected, raising his eyebrows. 

“And I’ve been married twice, already. I know what it feels like.” Natasha added. 

Toni’s shoulders slumped. She wanted to explain, because she feared her friends might assume that she didn’t love Steve, or something equally stupid. But how could she tell them what everything was about when she didn’t know herself?

“It’s not that I don’t love Steve.” she started. 

She had realized it in Transylvania, while fighting fucking vampires. Yeah, blood-sucking, undead vampires. And it hadn’t even been Toni’s weirdest day. 

She ducked just in time to avoid a flying, raging Hulk, hit by mistake by Thor’s hammer. 

“What are you doing, goldilocks?” Hulk screamed, trying to get back on her feet. Thor landed on the floor of Dracula’s castle with a vampire on his back, trying to shrug him - her? it? - off.

“I apologize, these monsters keep disappearing before my eyes!” he answered, finally getting the vampire off his back and trying to punch him. The vampire, as if proving Thor’s words, disappeared, and his fist collided with the floor. Mjolnir went back to his hand, freeing the Hulk from the wall. 

Toni had to think. Fast. They were outnumbered and couldn’t land a single hit because the bastards kept disappearing. On top of that, Cap was fighting Dracula himself, and he was losing. 

“You should be glad, supersoldier, that your blood will serve Dracula, the king of vampires-” of course he was monologuing. If they hadn’t been in the middle of a fight, Toni would have rolled her eyes. And so would have Steve, but he was currently struggling in the grip of the stupid king of vampires. No problem, though. Iron Woman to the rescue, blast the distracted vampire, piece of cake.

Or so she thought, before fifteen vampires jumped on her seemingly out of nowhere. They caught her by surprise. Her repulsors couldn’t take the increased weight, and she crashed to the ground. The vampires started biting the armor, howling when they didn’t find meat where to sink their fangs. Toni couldn’t get back on her feet. She could only stare as Dracula finished up his monologue. 

“I can’t move-” she shouted in the comms. If she didn’t die there, she would have had to drag Steve’s dead body back to the US. 

“Someone get to Steve, he-” And suddenly, that thought was too much. She couldn’t think of a world where stupid Steve didn’t make fun of her technology, didn’t have her back during battles, didn’t come down to the lab to talk to her bots and treat them as he treated human beings. Even Dum-E. Dracula smiled horribly and bared his fangs, ready to go for Steve’s throat. Toni stopped thinking. She unhooked her gauntlet and let it fly towards Dracula. The vampires on top of her saw it, and immediately went for her hand. 

The gauntlet hit Dracula and released an electric wave that had the vampire king screaming and, suddenly, releasing Steve. Half the vampires on top of her disappeared in order to reappear at their King’s side. And Hawkeye and the Hulk took care of the ones who were still trying to bite the now uncovered flash of her hand.

“Electricity!” she shouted, getting back on her feet and quickly commanding her gauntlet to go back to her. “Thor! Bring them down!”    
While the God of Thunder started swinging Mjolnir, Toni powered her repulsor and flew next to Steve.

“Thanks for the save” he grinned, recovering his shield. Toni looked at him and stayed silent, because the only thing she wanted to say was  _ I think I love you _ . 

“Thank me by not taking on the freaking Vampires’ king by yourself, next time.” she managed to say eventually, prompted by the worried look on Steve’s face. 

“Hopefully there won’t be a next time.” 

“It’s not that I don’t love him. I really, really do, and you all know it.” she said, reaching for an abandoned necklace on the table. She paused, pretending to ignore the look Clint and Nat shared. 

“Oh boy, do we know” commented Clint dryly, with a smirk on his face. Toni raised a bare foot to kick him in the shin.

“Bridezilla.”

“I hate you Barton.” she really didn’t, and the archer knew it. The fact that he didn’t answer to the playful banter told Toni that the two spies hadn’t fallen for her - poor - attempt to change subject. 

“I love Steve. I’m happy to marry him. But I have contrasting feelings, and I don’t know why. And as you know, I hate not having an answer. So yeah, here I am, on my wedding day, thinking back at my history with my future husband, trying to understand what the fuck I did wrong.”

“Why?”

“That’s what I’m tryin’ to figure out, Romanoff.” 

“I meant why must it be something you did wrong?” she said, patiently. Toni snorted gracelessly. Clint was about to kick her shin, then he remembered the wedding dress and stopped. 

“It’s the story of my life, guys: I can’t have nice things.” she said, keeping her tone light, but knowing fully well that a dark shadow had covered her eyes. 

“Yes you can. Look at me, I’m nice.” Clint said. Toni rolled her eyes, and Clint used the distraction to grab her hand.

“Toni, you deserve nice things. Don’t let your insecurities get in the way of your happy ending, because you deserve this.” he said. 

“It’s not- look, I’m approaching this scientifically. Every time I had nice things, I fucked up and lost them. I have evidence of this!”

Natasha crossed her arms on her chest.

“No. You might think you are looking at this scientifically, but you’re biased. Gosh, Stark, for being a genius you are pretty stupid, uh?” she said. Toni looked at her, offended. She smirked.

“You told us that the Avengers are like a family to you. So that’s a good thing, right? And guess what? We are all still here.” she continued. 

“And Steve didn’t go anywhere. Scientifically speaking, he didn’t give you a reason to doubt him.” Clint added. 

“I’m not doubting him. I’m doubting myself.” Toni murmured. “Remember how we got together?”

This time it was Clint who snorted. 

Of course Toni, after realizing her feelings towards Steve, had done the only thing she thought she could do: she avoided him completely. 

Nobody could blame her, though. In her life she only had one example of a working, functional, sane relationship, and it had been the one between Edwin Jarvis, her butler, and his wife Ana, who basically raised her, together with her godmother, Peggy Carter. However, she was not a Jarvis nor a Carter, she was a Stark, and Starks, from what she had seen, did not have functional and sane relationships. The fact that she had the emotional capability of a - stressed - cucumber did not help at all. So avoiding the problem it was. Story of her life.

She would watch a movie with the rest of the team in the living room of the communal floor, but as soon as Steve joined them, she would come up with some project she had conveniently forgotten about and ran back to her workshop. She would always ask Jarvis to tell her where Steve was, so she could avoid him and she also asked her AI to never tell Captain Rogers where she actually was. It was pretty damn obvious that she was avoiding him, but  _ fuck it _ , she thought. She was pretty sure that - now that she had realized the extent of her feelings - there was no way to keep them under control. Seeing him would just make it worse, right? And it didn’t matter if she missed him like crazy, missed his company in the workshop, his amazing drawings of the bots and the cars and her, his voice that constantly reminded her to take care of the boring stuff like eating, and drinking two liters of water a day and all that. 

“No Dum-E, I don’t want a smoothie.” she huffed, tying her hair in a messy bun to get them out of her face while she fixed the armor. 

It didn’t matter because, if she didn’t put her feelings under control she would blurt everything out and ruin their friendship, and she was not that selfish. That would ruin the dynamic of the team and honestly? The avengers were the best thing to happen to her in a long time. They gave her something she never thought she could actually have: a family of her own. 

So no, she couldn’t ruin everything by confessing some stupid feelings to Steve, right? Right. 

So avoiding it was. It was just getting tiresome to convince herself every time they brushed past each other and Steve send the puppy eyes her way. It wasn’t fair. But, again, many things in life weren’t fair, she needed to get over it.

The bot bumped into her leg again and moved the smoothie blender in front of her.

“No- is this how it’s gonna be tonight? Come on, Dum-E, put it back. No, I don’t need a damn smoothie.” it wasn’t fair to take her anger - even if it was only her words - out on her bot, who was just trying to cheer her up. She should have been mad only at herself, for having those stupid feelings. Howard had taught her: love is for the weak. 

“If she doesn’t want it, I’ll take it.” Steve’s voice behind her made her jump a mile. She spinned around and clutched her hands on her chest.

“What the fuck Steve! My heart is weak! Don’t do it again, don’t sneak up on me like that Jesus, what are you now? Barton? The other day he was pranking I don’t know who and he jumped out of the vents and he scared the fuck out of me-” she was rambling. She was rambling because Steve was in the workshop and she didn’t notice and Jarvis didn’t tell her and oh God, now they were alone how could she get out of that situation. Oh, wow, now she was rambling in her thoughts as well. Okay, that was a fairly common occurrence but still “-and that’s why I thought he was pranking Natasha but c’mon, you don’t prank the Black Widow-” oh, she was still rambling out loud as well. 

Steve just leaned on the armrest of the couch and listened to her words. He wasn’t smiling as usual, but he didn’t look angry or- Toni couldn’t interpret his face, and that was bad. She was good at reading Steve, so the fact that she couldn’t was pretty scary because she didn’t know what to think or do. 

She suddenly stopped rambling. She took a deep breath.

“Hi Steve, what can I do for you?” she said, a little more composed, letting go of her chest and trying to relax her muscles. 

“I need your help.” he said, simply, looking at her with those stupid beautiful blue eyes. She swallowed and nodded briskly. She felt like she was about to break and Steve had been in the workshop for something like two minutes. This was bad.

“With…?” she prompted him, thanking years and years of faking with the press for her amazing actorial skills. 

Steve showed her something in his hand. Toni took a couple steps to get closer and see what he was talking about, trying at the same time not to get to close. God, this was a nightmare. 

“Your… watch?”

“Yes. It broke.” he said, gingerly. Toni took another couple of steps and retrieved the object from Steve’s hand. And if in the meantime she noticed how beautiful his fingers were, and how much bigger than hers his hands were- well, that was between her brain and her eyes, right?

“It broke, uh? Why does it look to me like it was smashed somewhere?” 

“Because it was.”

“Oh- in battle? ‘Cause you don’t carry it with you in battle.”

“No. Like- five minutes ago. On a wall. By me.” Toni raised her head to stare at him in disbelief. 

“You- smashed your own watch? And then came to me for help?” she said. 

“Yes. I needed an excuse to come to the workshop and talk to you.”

What the fuck. In that exact moment, her brain froze completely and switched to autopilot. 

“Then why are you telling me?” she said, her fingers frozen over the delicate components of the watch.

“Because I don’t want an excuse to talk to my best friend. Even if said best friend has been avoiding me for weeks and apparently refuses to tell me what I did wrong or how to fix it.” he said. Toni turned her eyes to the watch and started working on it, without really thinking about it. She didn’t know what to say. She could only think of  _ you noticed? _ but that sounded stupid even to her ears. Of course he noticed. 

“I just wish we could talk about it like the adults we are. But the truth is- it took me two weeks to work up the courage to come and ask you. And it’s because I think I know why you’ve been avoiding me. And I don’t know if I actually- want to know.” he said. And he sounded just as uncertain and maybe just as afraid as Toni felt. 

“No- whatever you are thinking, it’s not it” she blurted out. Because this was exactly was she was afraid of. Ultimately, she was afraid of rejection. Of Steve figuring her feelings out and saying no. She’d rather not know. But now he thought he’d figured it out, and what if he had? She needed to come up with another reason, totally unrelated, but-

“Please, Toni, I need to do this. I-” he paused, seemingly to work up some courage. Toni braced for impact. “I am sorry. I didn’t mean to- fall for you. But I did.” he said, low enough that Toni thought she had imagined it. 

“Sorry… what?” Steve raised his eyes to meet hers, and all she could see in those blue irises was panic. 

“That’s not what-? I thought I didn’t do a good enough job of keeping it a secret and you figured it out and were trying to reject me.” he said, rushedly. Toni stared at him, wide eyed. 

“And I wanted to tell you that I- that it’s true, I have feelings for you, but I wouldn’t act on them if you didn’t want me to, and I value your friendship above anything else and God Toni I don’t wanna lose that.” he said, his voice getting increasingly panicked. He fell silent, looking at her with fear, and a little bit of hope. Toni gaped. 

If her brain had been working, she would have been thinking about how she didn’t deserve someone as him. About Howard’s words about love. About a thousand things all at once. But her brain froze a while back, so what the hell. 

“I was avoiding you because I realized I have feelings for you and was trying to avoid rejection.” she said, still stunned. And apparently now it was Steve’s turn to gape. 

“You- what- really?” he said.

“How can you” she pointed at him “have feelings for me??” and then pointed at herself.

“What the-? You are funny, caring, hella smart, like, you are a genius, you are beautiful, resourceful, and overall amazing.” Steve said, and his voice was just as serious as when he was defending her or another member of the team in front of the journalists, for whom he had developed a certain amount of hatred. 

“You are America’s golden boy! I’m the merchant of death!” 

“No you are not. The only people who call you that are some journalists who are too pissed about not having anything bad to write about you anymore. You are Iron Woman and Natasha Stark, superhero, owner of Stark Industries and head of the R&D department.”

They both fell silent for a second. At a certain point during the speech Steve had rose to his feet and had gotten closer to Toni. Not enough to be intimate, but enough for Toni to reach out and invade his personal space. If she wanted to. But she seemed to be completely stuck.

They stayed silent for a while. Toni was still working it all out in her head, and Steve- Steve was patiently waiting, and he didn’t look uncomfortable or eager. He just looked quiet and shy, and he was giving her time to think about it, to tell him to fuck off or to tell him that she needed more time.

“So- you have feelings for me.” she said in the end and, wow, surely that had been the smartest thing to say.

“Yes.” he said simply.

Toni took a step forward, and put a hand on Steve’s chest, slowly, testing out the feeling, the concept that maybe- she could have this. He felt Steve’s hand rest carefully on her hips, doing just the same. 

“So, if I were to kiss you right now…?” 

“God, please.” he murmured. She raised her head, and Steve met her halfway. And, damn, she had wanted it for weeks, thought about it endlessly, but the actual thing? It was ten times better than her imagination. She swore she could feel sparks in her mouth were Steve’s tongue was exploring and it was fantastic, it was perfect. 

When Steve’s watch fell on the ground, they both startled, and immediately started laughing, with a hint of hysteria. It felt liberating, and Steve’s hand were on her hips, pressing her against him and-

“Got anything important to do down here?” he asked, with his voice still breathless from the laughter and the kiss.

“No, I was just avoiding you.” she said, and they both smiled at each other.

“... my room?”

“God, please.” 

Natasha and Clint were both looking at her with a raised eyebrow each. 

“What? That proves my point.” Toni said, stubbornly.

“How does that prove your point?” Clint exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air in frustration. 

“It only proves that you two are idiots made for each other.” Natasha commented, studying her own perfectly painted nails. 

“No, it doesn’t! It was really awkward. It was a mess. I almost fucked up, once again.” 

Clint hopped off the table. 

“Well, you are not alone in that, then. Do you remember how Thor and Brenda got together?” he asked.

“During a fight they just- announced to us and the bad guys that they wanted to date?” Toni said, scrunching up her nose.

“Yes. And then the bad guy- who was it, Tash?”

“Crossbones.”

“Yes, Crossbones congratulated them in the middle of the battle. It was so fucking awkward. But it worked, didn’t it?”

“And don’t forget Rhodey and Carol.” Natasha added, helpfully. Toni groaned, and hid a smile in her hands. 

“Yes! Jenna couldn’t stop laughing for a day straight.” Clint recalled “she only barely stopped when Carol threatened to break up with her. Which she would never do because those two are fucking saps.” he grinned and sat, cross legged, on the bed.

“And let’s not forget me, Buck and Tash. We were a hot mess for months. I think we win most messy get together story. We are an example of people who almost fucked up. Not you and Steve- you were always each other’s.” Clint finished.

Toni closed her eyes and took a deep breath. It was true. In the end, when she could make sense of the mess in her head, she knew she didn’t have any doubt about her relationship with Steve. 

In that moment, Pepper and Jenna walked back into the room.

“Everything is fixed!” Jenna announced, and Pepper was smiling as well, while fixing her makeup and her dress.

“Ready to go?” she asked. Toni didn’t know the answer but hey, it was too late to panic. She opened her eyes and scanned herself in the mirror: her brown curls were all fixed in a simple, yet beautiful hairdo, and covered by the white veil, that once belonged to her mother. The dress was white and simple, and it hugged the shape of her body, with a deep neckline that showed the arc reactor in her chest, because it had taken a long time, but she had learned to love it. It showed who she was and, more importantly, what she was capable of. 

She hadn’t chosen the dress. She wouldn’t have known where to start, and she didn’t care that much about it. It had been Pepper, as usual: she had come to the Tower one day with the perfect dress, without putting Toni through the nightmare of going shopping for it.

“You look beautiful.” Pepper said now, with a sweet smile playing on her lips. Toni turned around to see her friends in a line behind her. Natasha was smiling with a hint of pride and what looked like tears in her eyes - Toni didn’t comment, she didn’t want to die. -, Jenna had insisted on not wearing any makeup and, seen how she had already shed a few tears, Toni could understand why. Clint raised his thumbs up with a bright smile. 

“Yeah, I’m ready. As ready as I’ll ever be.”

She stepped out of the car and looked at the church. A bit old fashioned, she had thought the first time she saw it. But Steve had looked happy and, the same night, he had revealed that sometimes his mother had imagined how his wedding would be, and that had been the church she’d had in mind. Toni, honestly, didn’t care about where they were getting married: it was about the who, and the who was perfect, so she had immediately agreed to the church. And now, there she stood, in front of the doors, with her heart thumping so loudly she thought everybody could hear it. It was beating so fast that, for a second, she thought the arc reactor might explode. 

_ Don’t be stupid, Toni. Just take a deep breath.  _

Before she could panic, though, Jenna was next to her, linking their arms. The two women smiled to each other.

“You are crying, Rhodey.” Toni murmured.

“Shut up, Tones. I’m about to walk you down the aisle, I am allowed a little bit of crying. And, I assure you, it’s tears of joy for not having to put up with your bullshit anymore.” Jenna smirked, leaning down to kiss Toni’s cheek lightly. 

“Ouch, honeybear, you’re killing me here. Also, like hell you won’t have to put up with it anymore. You’re still my best friend.”

“You bet your ass I am.” 

With a shaky breath, Toni looked up to the doors once again and nodded. Natasha, Clint and Pepper moved forward to open them, and the wedding march started to play. All the people in the church turned around immediately, and Toni froze. She couldn’t do this. Give her Doom Bots, give her the Super Adaptoid. Give her any enemy but this. 

Then her eyes locked on Steve’s, and she couldn’t stop the smile from spreading on her face. Fuck the doubts, fuck the people, fuck everything. She was about to marry the love of her life, and damn, he looked stunning. The suit was incredibly fitting, and it exalted his eyes, that were already getting watery. Bucky, next to him, put a hand on his arms, maybe to steady him, and turned to murmur something to Sam, who chuckled. Clint and Natasha started walking down the aisle, followed by Pepper and, finally, Toni with Jenna. 

She only took three steps, before the sound of a huge explosion resounded in the air. 

“Shit!” she heard Clint say.

“Jarvis, what’s going on?” she asked, turning around. 

“It appears that Madison Square Garden was attacked. The perpetrators are still unknown, miss.” Jarvis answered, dutifully, from the earpiece she always kept with her. 

Several super-people runned past her, already suiting up.

“I obtained the security cameras’ feeds. It appears that the responsible is someone using a suit similar to Iron Woman’s.” 

“Shit.” she said. Steve appeared next to her, shield in hand. She explained the situation while Natasha took care of the zipper of Toni’s dress. 

“Let us be haste in solving this situation, my friends!” Thor boomed. “So that Steven and Lady Natasha can go back to their beautiful marriage.” 

“Yes. Avengers, assemble!” At Steve’s words, Thor wasted no time and shot through the sky. Brenda sighed and turned to Toni.

“I am so sorry for the dress…” she said, sparing one last glance at the beautiful dress Toni had had made for her, before hulking out. 

“Boys!” Natasha - where did her suit come from? - called, racing for the bikes parked in front of the church, Hawkeye and The Winter Soldier, guns and bow already in hands, following after her. 

Toni left the dress in Pepper’s hands and quickly put on the undersuit that the woman was handing her. Steve grabbed her hand for a few seconds and, when she turned, he smiled at her. 

“You looked beautiful in the dress.” he said “And you look beautiful in the suit.” he added, carefully removing her veil and leaving it in Pepper’s safe hands, before running to another motorbike. Toni laughed and pressed the button on the suitcase that Jenna had already thrown her. 

“Be careful!” Pepper shouted, while the suit assembled around Toni. 

“I always am!”

“No, you’re not!” the other woman screamed again, right before Iron Woman shot through the sky to go join the battle. 

Justin Hammer. Fuck him, really.

“Of course it’s him.” Steve commented, hitting a stupid bot with his shield. 

“Yeah, I should have known. Of course he would ruin our wedding. He has nothing better to do with his life.” Toni answered, blasting another bot and looking around for the source of those useless pieces of lousy technology. It was, what? The fourth time Justin Hammer tried to recreate the Iron Woman’s suit? And he was still trying and, well, failing. 

“Shouldn’t he be in prison after he tried to blow up Manhattan the other day?” Clint asked, jumping off a roof and next to them. Natasha run towards them, Clint entwined his fingers to offer her leverage and she jumped high enough to reach a bot’s head with a roundhouse kick. 

“Nope, we knew it was him, but he managed to wipe out all proofs, so he was never sentenced.”

“As usual” Clint sighed, while Bucky took care of half the bots around him from his sniper nest. 

“I got him.” Toni said, spotting the knock off suit above their heads. 

“Toni wait! We don’t know-” before Steve could finish, Toni was already in the sky, reaching for the enemy. 

“So, Hammer, are you actually in the suit or are you being a coward as usual and playing with the remote control?” she sneered. 

“Natasha Stark, fancy seeing you here!” Hammer’s voice came through the speaker of the suit. 

“Knock it off and let me go back to my wedding.” 

“Oh, the wedding! I almost forgot about it! … Just kidding, I attacked today exactly because I knew you would all come directly from there, without your stupid costumes and without thinking things through. Not that you ever do, Natasha.”

“Don’t call my by name and stop monologuing.” Toni countered, raising her hands to shoot the suit with a blast. Hammer’s suit dodged, but the blast hit its arm anyway, blasting it off. And, of course, the suit itself was empty. 

With the corner of her eye, Toni saw Thor flying towards them, and got ready to finish off the other suit with one last blast.

“There is a reason I ‘play with the remote’, Stark. And it’s that I’m smarter than you!” Hammer voice said, and suddenly Toni knew she had miscalculated. She hadn’t taken into account the force of the pure hate Hammer had for her. She didn’t consider he would do that. Before he could finish the thought, Hammer’s suit, a few centimeters from her, exploded, together with what was, probably, an EMP. Suddenly, the suit shut down completely, Jarvis’ voice in her ear disappeared, and everything she could see was a small portion of the sky through the eyes of the helmet. And she was falling. Shit. 

“Lady Toni!” Thor shouted, but Toni was already falling fast. She should have put a fucking parachute in the suit. 

Suddenly she felt something crashing onto her, but moving her head with the suit completely stuck was a nightmare, so she just shut her eyes close and hoped for the best. When she opened them again, every bone of her body hurted, but she was on the ground, and she - probably - wasn’t dead.

“Am I dead?” she asked, just in case. Clint’s face popped in her field of vision.

“Nope, just very, very bruised from an explosion and the Hulk catching you mid-fall.” 

“Cool” Toni managed, before starting to cough. She immediately felt movement next to her head, and then the helmet came off, letting her breath some decent air. She turned her head slightly, taking in her surroundings. The street was full of ‘dead’ bots and rubble, and, weirdly enough, there was a thrashed newspaper next to her. She could only make out the title and a few sentences, but it was about her wedding.

‘The Taming of the Shrew’ was the title, of course. ‘Natasha Stark soon to be Natasha Rogers’. She felt a pang of something - not quite anger, but not quite sadness - in her belly, and turned her head. She saw Steve, kneeling next to her, his expression unreadable.

She wanted to ask him what was going on, or to assure him that she was fine, but suddenly that weird emotion in her belly turned to anxiety, and soon it was spreading in every inch of her body. Her fight or flight instinct woke up all of a sudden, and Toni forced herself to take a deep breath. It was just her body reacting a little bit late to the danger and the fall, probably. 

Before she could spiral into panic, the suit came back online.

“Jarvis, you’re alive.” Toni commented, forcing a cheerful tone and pushing the anxiety down, somewhere in the back of her mind.

“I cannot technically die, miss.” he answered, but he sounded a little bit relieved. 

“Scan for major wounds, I don’t want to get all up close and personal with the paramedics.” 

“No major wounds detected, miss.” was the response, after a few seconds. The team breathed a huge sigh of relief, and Toni sat up. “Only two cracked ribs and a lot of bruises.”

“It’s fine then.” Toni said, getting up with Clint’s help.

“It’s not fine.” Steve interjected, his face still unreadable. Toni turned towards her fiancé. 

“I’ve had worse, Steve. We’ve all had way worse than a couple of cracked ribs.” she said, crossing her arms on her chest.

“What if Hulk hadn’t been close enough to catch you, though?” he said, and a spark of some sort of emotion crossed his eyes, before he schooled his expression back to carefully blank. 

“But she was. I don’t see the problem.” Toni said, trying to focus on that emotion she saw. Was it anger? 

“The problem is that you rushed in without thinking!” When Steve’s voice got higher, Natasha coughed politely and gestured for the rest of the team to move away and give the couple some privacy. 

“What I was thinking was that Hammer needed to be stopped.”

“Yeah, about that and nothing else. It’s not the first time he pulls a stunt like that, Toni.” and his voice was tense, as tense as his posture. Toni felt criticized, and something inside her clicked. She switched back to the old habit of closing off when someone came for her. All the insecurities she had about the wedding a little more than an hour before came rushing back, stronger. 

“What are you saying, Steve?”

“That you were reckless and you did a stupid thing.” he said, avoiding her eyes. Toni felt the too familiar flare of anger rising in her chest. 

“Yeah, that’s what I do, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“I noticed, believe me. And you know I hate it when you do that.” he said, through gritted teeth. 

“Then why the fuck are you marrying me?” Toni shouted.

“Wha-?” Steve was stunned into silence, now. 

“You know what- I don’t think I can do this. Not today- I can’t-” she didn’t even know how to phrase it. She took a step back, lowered the face plate, and shot through the sky. 

She didn’t feel anything. She thought she would have cried, or screamed, or something along those lines. She thought she would have felt angry, or sad. But the truth was that she wasn’t feeling anything. She was numb, with a faint sense of nausea, and the events of the day were not fully settled in her brain. 

After getting away from the scene of the battle, she had thought about where to go. Not the church, of course. And she couldn’t go back to the tower and her workshop because, in the end, she was a coward, and she couldn’t look Pepper in the eyes after ruining something she had worked so hard for. 

In the end, her body took over, and she found herself in front of the Maria Stark foundation. She had gotten out of the suit and, dressed only in the tight undersuit she had on, she had sat on the bench in front of her mother’s memorial, feeling numb. 

She brought her knees to her chest and hugged them, to hide her face from the world.

“I don’t know what to do, mom. If only you were here… or aunt Peggy, Ana or Jarvis. I just- I can’t trust myself. I need someone to help me out but I keep fucking up over and over again.” she murmured, shutting her eyes.

She didn’t know how long she stayed there. She was the only one in the whole yard that surrounded the Foundation’s building, and the only noise she could hear was the chirping of the birds, and her stupid, messy, confusing thoughts. It was a nightmare.

“I brought you headphones.” Steve’s voice startled her so badly, she almost fell off the bench.

“What did I say about sneaking up on me?” the words were out of Toni’s mouth before she could think. Steve, still with the wedding suit on - even though it was ripped and dirty -, sat next to her, with a small smile on his lips, and handed her a pair of headphones and her StarkPhone. 

“I know you hate the silence. You need noise to make your brain function. So I brought you headphones.” he said, placing the device in her hand. 

“You came here, after everything I’ve said… to bring me headphones? Because I hate the silence?”

“Yeah. Because I want to talk, but I also know you need your space and your time right now. If I know you well enough, you want to organize your thoughts, and that’s not gonna happen unless you don’t have some noise drowning out everything else. So yeah, basically I’m being selfish, here. But- Toni, I understand if you don’t want to go back to the tower. If you need hours, or days, or weeks to think about it. Can I just ask… that you let me know? Whether you want to talk or not. Just- don’t shut me out, please?” and, as usual, his eyes looked so sincere, and reading Steve was like reading a book: everything was there, in front of her. She nodded.

“Thank you. If- if you want to talk, or just need a ride back to the tower, I’ll be out by the gate.” he said, softly, then got to his feet and walked in the direction of the gate. 

She stared after him for a few seconds, then slid the headphones over her ears and started playing her playlist. Rock music immediately and effectively shut off the thoughts, and she let the emotions settle down.

She loved Steve. She loved him so fucking much. And yet, she had said she didn’t want to marry him. Because, once again, she was fucking things up. It was the theme of her entire existence. With the music blaring at its loudest, the tears finally came streaming down her face, and her thoughts aligned into something. She could see the headlines of the newspapers that called her “Howard’s daughter” and the “Stark heir” and so on. And suddenly, it was clear.

Steve saw Toni walk in his direction, and thought that she looked beautiful. Her hair was a mess after being stuck under the helmet for the battle, her face sported some impressive bruises, her eyes were red rimmed, probably because of tears, and she looked painfully beautiful. Because it was Toni, and the mere thought of not having her in his life knocked the air out of Steve’s lungs. It would have been easier to fight the red skull with a butter knife than thinking about that.

And when she had said ‘I don’t think I can do this’, talking about the wedding, he had felt like a part of him was being ripped out and burned. She reached him and leaned on his bike, next to him.

“I figured it out.” she said, relaxing slightly. Steve turned his face to her, but stayed silent, not trusting his words. Because it was Toni’s choice, and he was going to listen and understand like the big boy he was. But he couldn’t be certain that, if he had opened his mouth, he wouldn’t have started begging for her not to break things between them. 

She took a deep breath, and Steve closed his eyes to brace for impact. Because it was Toni’s choice, but he couldn’t be certain he wouldn’t start crying. 

“I have spent the whole morning and good part of the afternoon thinking, trying to work out an answer to why wasn’t I just happy to marry you. I swear, I was very happy, but I also had these other stupid mixed bad feelings that just wouldn’t leave me alone. And then the battle, and I just- lost it.” she said. It was Steve’s turn to take a deep breath. 

“It’s not you, Steve. It’s not your fault, I mean. I love you, I don’t say it enough but I do.” all the tension that seemed to hold Steve’s body released abruptly, and he had to lean on the bike, because he suddenly felt very light and relieved. Toni’s hand found his, and he held on to her as if it was a rope thrown to a drowning man. 

“Do you remember that stupid gossip magazine I showed you, back when we weren’t together yet?” She was talking about something that had happened years ago, but Steve remembered, so he nodded. 

“It bothered me so much because it reminded me of how the media see me: as something to be linked to someone else. I was always my father’s daughter, my mother’s daughter in some cases, Stone’s ex girlfriend… I fought so fucking hard to get rid of that. To be my own person.” she smiled sadly, probably thinking about how many times she made mistakes with the team, and about the years of therapy. 

“And then we fought Hammer, and yes, I admit I made a mistake. But then when I opened my eyes I saw another stupid newspaper, and I was back at square one, you know? Once again, I was something to be linked to someone, in this case you. And it’s not your fault, it’s the stupid newspaper’s, but then you were angry at me, and, to me, it felt like being back at the beginning, being back where I was during my adolescence. And I lashed out. But yeah, I figured it out.” and with that, she let out a huge breath of relief, like she had solved one of her difficult equations. Steve waited for her to switch back her attention to him, then took her hand with both of his.

“We don’t have to get married Toni. I know it’s just a newspaper, but I was there while you were fighting to show those assholes what you are made of. I know how hard it was, and I don’t want to ruin it. Because what we have? Is already perfect. We don’t need a piece of paper to say that it is. I don’t need a piece of paper to tell me that I’m going to spend the rest of my life with the most amazing woman on this planet.” and God, it was sappy, but Steve meant every single word. He saw Toni’s eyes get watery. 

“I want to marry you, Steve. Fuck the newspaper. I just needed to know why I was feeling what I was feeling. Now that I know, I can say  _ fuck it _ .” she murmured, with a huge smile appearing on her lips. Steve smiled as well, and after a moment they were kissing, and, honestly, the rest of the world disappeared. 

“Would everybody be pissed if we move the wedding to tomorrow?” Toni said, breathless, when they stopped for air. 

“Why move it? Everybody is still either at the church or cleaning up the Hammer Bots.”

“I ruined my make up and my hair, and I’m covered in bruises.” Toni laughed.

“Do you think I care? You look stunning.” 

“... you know what? You are right. Let’s go, Capsicle.” 

“Sorry for the delay, everybody!” Toni shouted, entering the church. The priest startled, rising immediately on his feet. 

“The wedding is still on?” he asked, confusion clear in his voice. Toni, once again in the Iron Woman suit, grinned. 

“Yes.” she said, while Bucky sprinted next to her to get back to the place of best man. His suit was ripped, his hair was sticking in all directions and he was sporting an impressive slash on his flesh arm, already healing. 

The priest look at the state of complete disarray the Avengers and the other heroes were in and started to say something, but before he could voice his thoughts, Steve was standing in front of him.

“Would you mind making it quick? We wouldn’t want another villain to ruin it.” he said, with that Golden Boy smile of his.

Natasha, in her Black Widow suit, batted her hands on Clint suit to remove some of the dust, but couldn’t do nothing for the ripped trousers. He straightened his tie and resumed his place, together with Natasha and Jenna. Pepper reached her and smiled.

“I’m sorry I ruined everything you worked for…” Toni said, biting her lower lip. Pepper shook her head and kissed her half on the cheek half on the faceplate. 

“Are you happy?” she asked, taking the veil from the bench where she had left it. Toni closed her eyes for a second and smiled brightly. 

“Yes.” 

“Then it’s perfect.” with those words, Pepper placed Maria’s veil on top of the helmet, working some of her magic to make it stick, and took a step back, resuming her place as maid of honor. 

Toni looked around, taking in Brenda’s huge smile, even if she was only wearing Thor’s cape draped as a dress, and Thor’s thumbs up and barely contained laugh. The rest of the church wasn’t in much of a better state: people were dirty, bruised, smiling and fixing clothing and hair on the go. It was perfect. She turned to the love of her life, and almost bursted out laughing when she saw he had changed into his Captain America’s suit. She took the lasts step to the altar and linked her fingers with Steve’s.

“Wow, winghead, you clean up nice.” 

“What can I say, shellhead, I thought we could make a theme out of this.”    
Their smiling eyes locked together and Toni knew, this time for sure, with no afterthoughts or mixed feelings, that she was fucking happy. 

**Author's Note:**

> I am honestly very proud of this. It's my first long fic after a horrible period where I couldn't write for shit. That doesn't mean it's good, though! So, if you want, leave me a comment to let me know what you think, it would be greatly appreciated!  
(Or find me on tumblr at mayidisagreek to talk about it, if you prefer)


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